So, it seems the 131st consecutive successful Trident test flight (*) went off in an epic fashion! In Saudi!

That’s…unprecedented.

(UPDATE: Looks like the story is getting walked back a bit…the AP’s source, “A Western military official in Saudi Arabia” is being contradicted by Pentagon spokespersons–who say there was no launch of any kind.)

“The United States test-fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads during a joint military exercise Wednesday with Saudi Arabia, a Western military official said.

The Trident missile launch was carried out in the kingdom, the official said, but he would not give a precise location. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.”

Was this missile fired from a land-sharkesque Sand Sub? Did we ship a missile over for a launch from a Saudi facility? Or fire it from a sub elsewhere?

I mean, while this may explain why some Tehran IP addresses have been, ah, oh, rather avid consumers of my home-blog, NextNavy.com, I really wonder what is going on here.

What an odd story….If this missile launched from the Saudi’s sandy seas, at a Saudi launch facility, then…I must ask: Do we really want to export this kind of strike platform? There?

Really?

We need to know more.

A lot more–Did America conduct an unprecedented Persian Gulf/Red Sea/Indian Ocean launch….for a missile defense test? Or is this the new face of Prompt Global Strike–a little project you can read more about in April’s USNI Proceedings)?

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About Defense Springboard

Defense Springboard is an academic who began engaging in national security debates as a doctoral student in Biomedical Sciences at Harvard University. After earning his degree in 2005, he lectures somewhere on the West Coast, and his research interests range from biological weaponry to littoral engagement.

A frequent contributor to USNI’s Proceedings Magazine, Springboard has published in the Naval War College Review, Navy Medicine, National Defense Magazine, The Washington Post, the International Herald Tribune and elsewhere.

I *seriously* do not see this happening and deeply suspect the “source.” From first hand experience, for starters, we don’t just hose off a Trident any where without first going through a notification process and issue flight bans and NOTMs (unless it is really in anger — then I probably wouldn’t be sitting here writing this…). When we do fire a Trident, it is from a range to an instrumented test range so that we can collect information on the entirety of flight. Thinking about the location of those ranges and a (hypothetical) shot form the AG/PG/NAS/Red Sea (???!!!) and corresponding trajectories — nah, just not passing the smell test.
Anything else is just a (monumental) waste of scarce dollars.
w/r, SJS
P.S. Did anyone at the Post happen to check the date on the press release by this so-called “Western military spokesman”? coughaprilfoolscough….

They launched a Trident from within the Kingdom? How? I mean, they sure didn’t pull an Ohio boat ashore. That leaves either the Gulf or the Red Sea as launch points. And I’d be shocked to learn they launched a Trident from those waters.